Saint-Mihiel Salient Battlefield France. Hattonchatel.March 2014
Hattonchatel a hill top town on the St Mihiel Salient which was heavilly damaged during WW1. Miss Ruth Skinner from Holyoke in Massachusetts in the USA helped to rebuild the hill top town after WW1. The Church is still a ruin.
Ruth Isabel Skinner (born April 30, 1866) was an American businesswoman. She was a daughter of silk manufacturer William Skinner (1824-1902) and his second wife, the former Sarah Elizabeth Allen (1834-1908). Belle Skinner was a humanitarian and music-lover whose life her brother William memorialized in the construction of the Skinner Hall of Music at Vassar in 1932. She lived most of her life in Wistariahurst in Holyoke, Massachusetts, now an historic site. She renovated and expanded this house to reflect her interests, including adding the music room, where she housed her musical instrument collection, now housed at Yale University.
After the first world war, Belle Skinner helped rebuild the small town of Hattonchâtel and Château de Hattonchâtel.
The Battle of Saint-Mihiel was a World War I battle fought from 12-15 September 1918, involving the American Expeditionary Force and 48,000 French troops under the command of General John J. Pershing of the United States against German positions. The United States Army Air Service (which later became the United States Air Force) played a significant role in this action.[2][3]
This battle marked the first use of the terms "D-Day" and "H-Hour" by the Americans.
The attack at the St. Mihiel Salient was part of a plan by Pershing in which he hoped that the United States would break through the German lines and capture the fortified city of Metz. It was one of the first U.S. solo offensives in World War I and the attack caught the Germans in the process of retreating.[3] This meant that their artillery were out of place and the American attack proved more successful than expected. Their strong blow increased their stature in the eye